Danish-Hallesche Mission
The Danish-Hallesche Mission was the first organized mission society in Protestant church history. She worked between 1706 and 1845 in the east of Tamil Nadu in southern India and was also called the Danish-English Hallesche Mission , Tranquebarmission or, more recently, the ecumenical triangle Copenhagen-Halle-London (2006).
The ecumenical sponsors were Reformed circles in Denmark, representatives of Halle Pietism and the Anglican Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). The Tranquebarmission began on the territory of the Danish trading company in Tranquebar and later continued its work in areas under English rule. In addition to the missionary work, significant scientific research was carried out on the language, religion, nature and society of South India.
history
In 1704 the Danish King Frederick IV decided to set up an overseas mission in the south-east Indian trading colony of Tranquebar . On July 9, 1706, the German missionaries Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682 / 83–1719) and Heinrich Plütschau (1676 / 77–1752) set foot on Indian soil in Tranquebar. After initial conflicts with the British East India Company , which resulted in Ziegenbalgs being imprisoned for four months, Tranquebar became the starting point for Protestant missionary activity in Tamil Nadu .
Due to the political and religious connections between the Danish royal court and pietistic circles in Germany as well as the personal contacts between the first missionaries and August Hermann Francke , the Francke Foundations in Halle developed into one of the most important agencies for missionary activity. The pietistic circles in Halle around Francke and his successors were responsible for the selection and training of new candidates for sending to India for a period of almost 150 years.
From 1710 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) participated financially and logistically in the mission under the decisive influence of the pietistic court preacher Friedrich Michael Ziegenhagen . With the establishment of the Mission College in Copenhagen, the Danish royal family tried to further consolidate its position as initiator and promoter of the mission.
From Tranquebar, the Danish-Hallesche Mission constantly expanded its sphere of influence. 1728 occurred in Madras with Benjamin Schultze officially (1689-1760), the first missionary in Anglican services. Cuddalore , Calcutta , Tiruchirappalli and Tanjore followed as further mission stations . From 1750 Christian Friedrich Schwartz did missionary work for the Danish-Hallesche Mission in South India.
While missionary activity began to decline in the last quarter of the 18th century, the Tranquebar mission lost much of its influence at the beginning of the 19th century. The political and social conditions in Europe, the effects of the Napoleonic wars on Germany let the interest of the previous support groups sink. The Tranquebar mission officially existed until the sale of the Danish branch in Tranquebar to the English in 1845. By the end of the thirties there were no missionaries under the Danish Crown in Tranquebar.
The Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society in Dresden, founded in Germany in 1836 (from 1848 Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Leipzig ) saw itself as a successor organization to the Danish-Halle Mission and in 1840 sent its first missionary, Heinrich Cordes .
After 83 years of successful missionary work, the Lutheran congregations in Tamil Nadu declared their independence at the Synod of Tanjore opposite the "Leipziger Mission" and the "Church of Sweden Mission" on January 14, 1919 and founded the "Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC)" . Their leaders were then the Bishops of Tranquebar .
Services
The Danish-Hallesche Mission was an international and ecumenical organization. Their supporting institutions belonged to different nations and denominations. The European missionaries relied on the support of Indian workers, who did a substantial part of the local conversion work.
As a basic requirement for missionary work, the missionaries dealt with the local languages and translated parts of the Bible, Christian literature and hymn books into Tamil and Telugu, but also into Portuguese. By setting up the mission's own printing works, they had the opportunity to print their own work directly on site and in a short time.
The school system played a central role in the mission strategy. The educational content was based on local requirements and the particularities of the caste structure. Girls also received elementary education. The missionaries followed the example of the Francke Foundations in Halle with their craft training and real-life lessons. They trained their own teachers for work in schools.
The missionaries constantly sought information and current specialist literature, which they used specifically for their own investigations. They exchanged ideas with Indian scholars and with scientists from other European nations. With their letters, reports and diaries, which were published in Halle and distributed worldwide, they had a decisive influence on the image of India in the 18th century. Her research in the fields of religion, linguistics, ethnology, natural history and medicine influenced the development of knowledge in Europe.
The archive and library of the Francke Foundations in Halle and the archive and library of the Leipziger Missionswerk stored in Halle today contain around 35,000 manuscripts and prints, which testify to the outstanding work of the missionaries in southern India.
Archive inventory
Database of the archives of the Danish-Hallesche Mission:
- URL in German: http://192.124.243.55/cgi-bin/dhm.pl
- URL in English: http://192.124.243.55/cgi-bin/dhmeng.pl .
literature
Own publications
- The Royal Detailed reports sent to Danish missionaries from East India. Hall 1705–1775 (Hallesche reports).
- Modern history of the missionary institutions for the conversion of the Gentiles in East India. Hall 1776–1848. (New Hallesche reports).
- Mission news from the East India Mission in Halle. Hall from 1849
Secondary literature
- Arno Lehmann : Halle physicians and medicine at the beginning of German-Indian relations. In: Scientific newspaper of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg , XIII. Born 1955 (= Vol. V) Issue 2, pages 117-132.
- Werner Raupp (ed.): Mission in source texts. History of the German Evangelical Mission from the Reformation to the World Mission Conference Edinburgh 1910, Erlangen [u. a.] 1990, pp. 138-163 (= Dänisch-Hallesche Mission) (Einf., Quellen, Lit.).
- Kurt Liebau: The first Tamils from the Danish-Halle Mission in Europe. From object to subject of cultural interaction? in strange experiences. Asians and Africans in Germany, Austria and Switzerland until 1945. Ed. Gerhard Höpp . Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 1996 ISBN 3860931113 pp. 9–28.
- Daniel Jeyaraj: Inculturation in Tranquebar. The contribution of the early Danish-Halle mission to the development of an Indian-indigenous church (1706–1730) . ( Research in missiology . New series, Volume 4.) Verlag der Ev. Luth. Mission, Erlangen 1996.
- Heike Liebau: On the education of “capable subjects” to spread the Gospel: The school system of the Danish-Halle Mission as a pillar of the mission organization. In: Arthur Bogner (ed.): World mission and religious organizations. Protestant Mission Societies in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Würzburg 2004, pp. 427-458.
- Erika Pabst (ed.): Sources of the India Mission 1700-1918 in archives of the German-speaking area. Halle Source Publications and Repertories 9. Halle 2005.
- Andreas Gross, Y. Vincent Kumaradoss, Heike Liebau (eds.): Halle and the Beginning of Protestant Christianity in India , Volume 1–3: Franckesche Stiftungen, Halle 2006.
- Roland Sckerl, Tranquebar. Pictures from the first hundred years of Lutheran missions in India. Three short biographies based on old reports. Durmersheim, 2006.
- Anne-Charlott Trepp, From Missioning Souls to Exploring Nature. The Danish-Hallesche South India Mission at the end of the 18th century , in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 36 (2010), pp. 231–256.
- Heike Liebau: The Danish-English Hallesche Mission (Tranquebarmission) , in: European History Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2010 Accessed on: June 13, 2012.
- Ulrike Gleixner: Patrons in the Kingdom of God. Women of high standing in the network of the Protestant mission to India in the 18th century , in: L'Homme Geschlechtgeschichte global Heft 2 (2012), pp. 13–31.
- Ulrike Gleixner: Remapping. The World: The Vision of a Protestant Empire in the Eighteenth Century , in: Barbara Becker-Cantarino (ed.), Migration and Religion. Chloe, Beihefte zum Daphnis Vol. 46 (2012), pp. 77-90.
- Brigitte Klosterberg: The "mission archive" in the archive of the Francke Foundations in Halle . in: MIDA Archival Reflexicon (2020), ISSN 2628-5029, 1–9.
Web links
- Missionaries to India of the Danish-Halle Mission (1706-1837)
- Francke Foundations in Halle
- Writings on the Danish-Hallesche Mission (digital library) ( Memento from February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- "Conversations in Tarangambadi: Caring for the Self in Early Eighteenth Century South India" by Eugene F. Irschick ( Memento from May 29, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (in English) Wait for the loading time! (PDF file; 259 kB)
- Heike Liebau: The Danish-English Hallesche Mission (Tranquebarmission) , March 12, 2010.
Individual evidence
- ↑ A. Sames: Relations between Halle, Copenhagen and London , in: H. Liebau (ed.): Geliebtes Europa - Ostindische Welt. 300 years of intercultural dialogue as reflected in the Danish-Halle Mission , Verlag der Francke Foundations, Halle, pp. 29–34
- ^ Heike Liebau: The Danish-English-Hallesche Mission (Tranquebarmission) , March 12, 2010.
- ↑ Brigitte Klosterberg: The "mission archive" in the archive of the Francke Foundations in Halle . In: MIDA Archival Reflexicon . 2020, p. 1 ( projekt-mida.de ).